


Out of Time

by Stranger



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: 1969 racial and sexist attitudes, Canon time travel, Gen, episode interlude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 01:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8351479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stranger/pseuds/Stranger
Summary: The SG-1 team, stranded in 1969, takes a road trip in a flower-power minibus (with Jenny and Michael) as they're looking for the Stargate.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2001, as an interlude in the "1969" episode.

They'd got some clothes that suited the times… kinda. Jack wasn't sure flower power fashions were blend-in common even in 1969, but the hippie-ish secondhand clothing matched their mode of travel and if there was one thing it _didn't_   look like, it was camo fatigues from a top-secret Stargate facility thirty years in the future. Good enough, he decided, especially since _he_   got a leather jacket with no flowers at all.

Lunch afterward in a blue-striped-awning Amarillo lunchroom nearly made him change his mind. The waitress' eyes widened at their first appearance, though Jack couldn't blame her; he'd have stared at Teal'c in a brocade vest and pink headscarf any day, and Daniel was doing a passable imitation of John Lennon at his most inscrutable. And enjoying it, weird monkey that he was. At least somebody was enjoying something. Jack was dealing with everything, but down where he didn't look very often, he was scared. They couldn't get back to 1999. They had to. Couldn't. Had to. Impasse.

But meanwhile, lunch. The four of them finished soup and sandwiches and ordered pie, and while they waited for it, Sam stared into the bottom of her empty tea cup. "That's an interesting interference pattern."

"Reading tea leaves now, Carter?" asked Jack.

She shrugged. "At this point, I'll take anything I can get."

"Let me see," said Daniel, reaching across the table for the cup from his and Jack's side of the crowded booth. "You will meet a tall, dark stranger… Oops, wrong channel. You will solve a great mystery… Hey, it looks a little like the ideogram for 'water.' Planning any sea voyages?"

Teal'c, getting into the spirit of things, took the cup and peered into it in turn. "This is much like the sign for Setesh."

Daniel frowned. "Setesh? Seket? Seth?" asked Daniel. "The Egyptian god of chaos and evil? That guy?"

"I liked the tall dark stranger better," said Sam.

Daniel looked at her and Teal'c, eyebrows semaphoring something Jack couldn't quite read. "My mistake. Of course."

She took the cup back from Teal'c and pushed it at Daniel again. "There's a tall, fair stranger in there too, isn't there?"

"Oh. Yes." He flicked a glance at Jack. "And a tall colonel stranger, maybe?" Jack watched the by-play, amused. All of them were thinking of time and the future, and tea leaves were a safe topic in a public restaurant. Something in Carter's relaxed-for-once posture reminded him that she knew Daniel and Teal'c, as civilians, were less subject to the stringent regulations about relationships, that was, "relationships," between officers.

Nonsense, Jack told himself. Sam and Danny were close, all right, but they acted like nothing so much as twin twelve-year-olds who talked in big words. Sam and Teal'c… She was smiling down at Teal'c's teacup now. "Well, _you're_   not going to meet a tall, dark stranger." Relationships within a unit were also supposedly off-limits, but in a close-knit team like SG-1, "too close" would have to be something as unsubtle as sex on the conference room table.

"I am glad to hear it." Teal'c, who somehow looked even scarier in pink than in combat gear, peered into the teacup along with Sam. "Everyone is a stranger at first meeting. Is this not so?"

"That's right. It's a cliché, because it's always true." explained Sam.

"Whether it means anything or not," put in Daniel.

The wide-eyed waitress sailed up to their table, laden. "Apple pie for you, pecan pie, and lemon meringue for Mr. Big, here." She set plates in front of Jack, Daniel and Teal'c. "Coffee coming right up. Will that be all?"

# # #

Trouble found them halfway back to the psychedelic bus, in the form of two young men, both beefy specimens with necks thicker than their heads. "Whatcha doing in town?" said the redhead, stepping out directly in front of them on the sidewalk to block their way. He was addressing Teal'c. In a somewhat hostile manner.

"We're just passing through," Jack answered, suddenly aware that 1969 hadn't been that far into the civil rights era, and that it probably looked like Carter and Teal'c were a couple, walking together in front while Carter lectured. Teal'c knew less about 1969 than any of them, and was willing to listen. Carter — and Daniel, often enough — were having a field day with him.

Sure enough, the brown-haired man with the sunburn was glowering directly at the black-and-blonde pair. Oh shit, thought Jack. This was no time to start a fight. "Peace and love, brother. I'm Jack, this is Daniel—" Daniel nodded and started to speak, but Jack shushed him. For a wonder, it worked. "That's Teal'c and Samantha. Something we can help you with, gentlemen?"

"'Gentlemen?'" echoed the redhead, mockingly. " _He's_   not a 'gentleman.'" He glared at Teal'c.

"Teal'c is a friend of ours," said Daniel.

"Is he a _friend_   of hers?" said Brown-hair, dangerously. At least, it was obvious that Brown-hair thought it looked dangerous.

"Teal'c is a friend of mine," said Carter, frostily. "So are Daniel and Jack." Jack heard the tiny pause before his name instead of Sam saying "colonel," but he doubted anyone else did. "Is that all you wanted to know?" She smiled at both men, sincere but not happy, as if they were higher-ranked officers she didn't care for. Jack had seen that smile a few times, and counted it a personal victory that he hadn't seen it directed at _him_   for over a year. She added, "Peace. Have a nice day."

They didn't go away, but crowded a step close to Teal'c. "Do you wish to ask me something?" asked Teal'c, returning both men's stares with bland interest. Teal'c would hardly have missed the unspoken threats, even if he was only academically aware that the Tau'ri differentiated, sometimes pejoratively, between individuals of differing skin color.

Daniel pushed forward to stand by Carter. "Sam, are these _gentlemen_  " — he glanced at Brown-hair and Redhead without staring long enough to make it a challenge — "in your way?" He didn't, Jack was glad to note, stand close enough to interfere with her sudden shift to a martial-arts readiness stance. Sam could take care of herself and anything these chumps could offer would only amuse Teal'c, but better if Daniel could defuse the situation without a fight.

"They don't quite seem to understand the situation," she said, and added in a tone that rang impossibly false to Jack, "Darling." Good girl, Carter, do it the easy way. You can beat up Daniel for it later.

Redhead was still scowling at Teal'c, but Brown-hair gave a double-take at Daniel. "Is she _your_ …"

Jack saw that hit Daniel, saw the automatic sad headshake coming, saw it stop. Daniel said, with steely and meticulous truth, "Gentlemen, my wife is no concern of yours. Nor are my friends. Now, if you'll excuse us, we'd like to continue on our way."

Jack closed up behind Teal'c and gave Redhead a mean look, just in case he hadn't gotten the change of plan yet. "Nice to make your acquarius," he said, "but we have to capricorn right along now."

They made their way past the pair of bullies, Jack in the rear to forestall any possible last-minute attacks.  _Just try it, Buster. Make my day._ But no, 1969 was even before Dirty Harry, and the adrenaline surge faded into his ongoing headache. Curley and Moe back there were nothing but products of their time, asinine as they were. _This_   time. Jesus, they _had_   to get home. Somehow.

# # #

Jack pushed through Illinois underbrush, which was tame compared to a Colorado mountainside and tamer next to some of the P3X planets, on his way back to the campfire. He could swear there was a suburb of Chicago right here in the 90s, but in 1969 it was a campground, and not a well-travelled one.

He nearly stepped on Jenny and Michael, spooned together under a nearly unnecessary blanket, asleep — ooops, maybe not asleep. He stepped away sideways onto leaf mold, leaving them to privacy, grinning. Shacked-up kids, doing what kids had always done. With luck, they wouldn't have noticed him.

He found his team a few trees further on, huddled into three closely spaced lumps. Two of them were even curled together as closely as Jenny and Michael, though the utter relaxation and a faint snore from Daniel made it clear that actual sleep was taking place. Then he saw the gleam of open eyes from the largest bundle. Teal'c was awake, looking at Carter. A second gleam of eyes showed Carter was awake as well, and they were looking at each other as if nothing else mattered.

He heard a murmur, low and intimate-sounding in the dark. Carter — who was practically cradled in Daniel's arms, not that it meant anything — and Teal'c? These were _his_   kids, and he halted, listening.

And heard, "…physics Schroedinger's cat isn't real, it's a theoretical construct. But the only theory of time travel we have is that it's equally likely that the particle goes forward or backward, as randomly as any other quantum-level transaction. If the naqahdah interaction with the…" The next words might have been "mucus neptunes" or "mesa napkins" or "mellow yellow," for all Jack understood. What Jack did understand was that Teal'c was even more scared than the rest of them — all right, not scared, but sensibly aware of the difficulties — about being stuck in 1969, and Carter was giving him something to chew on that might, eventually, hypnotize him into either sleep or kel-no-reem, whichever applied.

If he listened any longer, it was going to hypnotize Jack, and he was supposed to be keeping watch. He moved back, circled briefly, and stepped into the clearing where they could see him. By the time he heard anything else, it was a soft, "I will remember," from Teal'c, while Sam lay back against Daniel's shoulder with Teal'c's hands still tucked around hers.

They looked comfortable. If these were any other people, he'd be confused at just how comfortable they were. As it was, they were a team, tighter together than ever on this — apt term — trip. His team was all right, even on a jokers-wild ride through time and space. If they didn't get back—

He cut that thought off at the knees. They were going to get back. Period.

# # #


End file.
